iCloud Photos: Where are my photos stored?

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iCloud Photos: Where are my photos stored?

Little clarification regarding iCloud Photos as I personally find the explanation online unclear..

Just bought a new MBP and will be running off one machine from now on compared to my existing MBP + iMac setup. All my photos are currently stored on my iMac and I do not use iCloud photos or any external hard drives for photos at the moment. My new MBP has a 1TB HD but I obviously don't want the entire drive to be used for my photo library.

If I was to use iCloud Photos, where are my photos really stored? Ideally, I would love for all my photos, no matter where they're imported from (iPhone camera roll or imported to Mac via SD card), to be stored in iCloud and mirrored to all my devices without taking up space on the device's drive.

Is this possible with iCloud Photos? If not, what other options do I have?

Thanks!

Posted on Dec 29, 2021 3:46 PM

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Answer 1

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MrHoffman

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Level 10

124,447 points

Dec 29, 2021 3:49 PM in response to paris514

iCloud Photos will store all of your photos on Apple servers, with the full catalog of photos available on your devices, and with cached copies of some of your photos located on your devices. The cached copies do occupy local storage, and iCloud manages that usage.

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Answer 2

paris514 Author

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Dec 29, 2021 3:57 PM in response to MrHoffman

Thank you! A couple follow up questions in that case...

I'm assuming I can then determine how much space I want my Photos cache to use up on my devices?

When downloading a photo to Mac from SD card or taking a photo with iPhone, the photo will immediately be stored in iCloud instead of on the device?

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Answer 3

muguy

Level 10

81,151 points

Dec 29, 2021 4:02 PM in response to paris514

You can optimize photo storage on device in Settings > Photos on an iDevice and in the Photos App (Photos > Preferences > iCloud). Pictures imported in the Photos app will sync with iCloud. If you choose to optimize, originals are uploaded into iCloud and optimized versions remain on device.

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Answer 4

Dec 29, 2021 4:35 PM in response to paris514

paris514 wrote:

I'm assuming I can then determine how much space I want my Photos cache to use up on my devices?

Nope. macOS and iCloud look at how much storage you have, and—since free storage is wasted storage—tries to cache photos of interest. When the storage used by the cache is needed for files, macOS and iCloud will free the storage. Again, you’re looking at a cache, and stuff can get evicted when free storage is low, or when other content needs that storage.

When downloading a photo to Mac from SD card or taking a photo with iPhone, the photo will immediately be stored in iCloud instead of on the device?

As the image imported, yes.

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iCloud Photos: Where are my photos stored?

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